7.3.12

Elf Cosmetics

Apologies for taking sooo long to get this up - its been half written in my drafts for so long and then I got struck with the worst flu of my life so its taken me a while to get all the pictures done for it. Here it is anyway, enjoy!

I took advantage of Elf's 30% off code yesterday and ordered a couple of things. What has really impressed me is I ordered thursday morning and the package turned up the very next day! I only got standard delivery so I am very impressed.

For those know don't know elf (eyeslipsface.co.uk) they are an online make-up brand offering quality products but without the huge pricetag. They do everything from mineral make-up to nail varnish with prices as low as £1.50, perfect for those on a budget!

I am not new to Elf but I ordered all new items apart from one so I'm sharing them all with you:

I'm not really one to spend a fortune on brushes, mostly because I don't have the money to spend on the really good ones.. I chose a few of the bamboo brushes. They are eco friendly (made of bamboo) with Taklon brushes which are cruelty free and anti-bacterial. The brushes feel quite light due to the material they are made of, and the bristles feel soft but firm at the same time so hopefully they will be pretty good. They are £5.50 each which isn't a bad price, and come in their own little sleeves so you can keep them clean and stored away when not in use.

I used a few of them today - the contour brush is my favourite. Its firm but soft on the skin so blends really well - holds the eyeshadow nicely and is easy to clean. Very happy with it.

After looking for something to bump up my list to free postage, I came across this brush shampoo for £3.50. I've read that you can use a mix of water and baby shampoo to clean your brushes, but this seemed like quite a nice little product to have. This brush shampoo is for deep cleaning of the brushes (once a week I reckon) to remove all excess make-up and keep your brushes hygenic. It also promises to condition the brush hairs to prolong their life. The bottle itself is reasonably small at 120ml but I can't see that you'll need much of it as the consistency is quite thick. Theres a little push cap at the top for easy application and its virtually fragrance free, with only a slight smell, which I can only describe as a typical "make-up remover" smell. So quite pleasant.

In conjuction with my brush shampoo, I grabbed this Daily Brush Cleaner for £3.50. We use similar sprays at to these at work when doing makeovers and they are extremely handy for cleaning excess product off brushes and keeping brushes clean and soft. I like this over the shampoo because it is super easy to use and very quick - I don't have a lot of time to clean my brushes in the morning. It is completely scentless too - so no lingering smells. Its the same price as the shampoo - but a lot bigger, sot it feels like better value for money.

These lipglosses I have yet to make my mind up on. My first little gripe is the colours are VERY different to those shown on the website. The two colours I ordered were Blossom and Bare, and blossom is much pinker than pictured and bare has a glitter sheen which I wasn't expecting as it wasn't pictured. I still really like the colour and for £1.50 each, these Hypershine glosses are good value for money.

Its a little petty, but on the tubes they say for first time use to twist it 10 times to get colour out. WRONG. it took me like 5 minutes to get colour to come out of these. Once the colour was out it was fine but I started to think I'd got some broken ones cos nothing was happening! Also the texture of these confueses me a little. They feel really weird. In the picture they look super glossy which they do, but they are very very thick unlike a lot of glosses I have used before, which gives them this dense stickiness. Obviously glosses are sticky but these just feel totally different and I can't really make my mind up on them. So the pro's of these are - super glossy, pigmented colour and crazy cheap, but the cons are - colours aren't true to to the website pictures, the texture is really weird and twist glosses are a pain to get going. So overall I'd say order one and make your own mind up on these.

This radiance enhancer is a weird product. I bought it out of curiosity mostly, as its advertised as a multi-tool product for dullness and radiance at a £3.50 price tag. I was a little confused over the colour choice as they offer three, so I chose spotlight as it looked like one that I could easily match to my skin. Overall I'm not hugely impressed by this product - I don't really feel like it made that much difference to my skin and it has a very thick consistency which I found a little hard to blend into my skin. For a cheap quick fixer though I guess it would be good.

This matt lip colour is great - its a big fat crayon thats so easy to apply and it has no glitter, no shine and no fuss. Its £3.50 from their studio range and they offer it in four colours - the one I got is called Natural and its deadly accuraate to the colour pictured on the website. I do really like this product, its one of my favourites, so just order it!

Again this one is a staple in my bag - The lipliner and blend brush is great and I use this as an all over matte lip colour cos it has a super staying power. Its £3.50 and comes in six different colours, this one is in Natural and its the only one I've ever tried. Everytime I order it I get freaked out by the brown on the outer packaging and panic that I've ordered the wrong colour - but it doesn't come out like that at all and I have no idea why they've put that on there! The colour palette on the website is ever so slightly off so bear that in mind if you order it. Only downside I have on this product is it doesn't last long at all - I got through my first one in two weeks of everyday wear, which disappointed me a lot. But for the price I spose you can't really complain.

I thought I'd try their eyeshadows as I've never tried the studio eyeshadows. This is the single palette and comes in loads of different colours and they are £3.50 each. I ordered pebble and I'm a little disappointed in the colour to say the least. In the palette it looks ok, but on my skin it comes out this horrible bruise colour! Also the eyeshadows are super smudgy so I couldn't even get a straight liner to test on my hand without it blobbing into a circle. This I can imagine is great for blending but I dunno its put me off it a little bit. So unfortunately I can't wear this colour without looking like I have two black eyes! But you win some you lose some, right..

If you are thinking of ordering off ELF, sign up to their newsletter, or follow them on twitter or facebook. I have never paid full price for any of my products because they do promotions so often - so its worth holding out a little while until they whack up a discount code, and trust me, you won't have to wait long.

What do you think of Elf makeup? Do you have a favourite product by them, or any products you regret buying?